The falsity of fake news
Difficult to pin down when this narrative actually began, but for argument’s sake I’ll posit its start with the recent Australian Federal Election and the plethora of fake news trumpeting a Labor victory.
A successive run of negative polls published over at least two years, pointed to this mythical Labor win.
Indeed, dire poll numbers prompted Malcolm Turnbull’s putsch, which lead to the demise of Tony Abbott and ultimately the triumph of Scott Morrison.
The script suggested a brave new Shorten Labor Government replete with the sparkling post-modern trappings of a new Whitlam/Hawke/Keating imperium.
But the thumping hangover of this self-inflicted delusion is made worse by recent raids on the ABC and a News Corp journalist, both aided and abetted by the home-grown master of the dark art of fake news, the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton.
Minister Dutton displayed his mastery of the art during a Kitchen Cabinet interview with Annabel Crabb on ABCTV Insiders.
I don’t often reach for the mute button, but this chat, characterised as a train wreck by the Labor Senator shadowing Dutton Kristina Keneally, bodes ill for the Opposition.
Indeed when the Australian Parliament resumes, Morrison, Frydenberg, Dutton, Christian Porter and the entire triumphant Liberal Front Bench, will deploy fake news with such gusto, the occasional frisson of Question Times past, will be recalled as a golden era.
To be sure the Federal Member for Grayndler and Labor Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, a known political bare-knuckled brawler of Tories, begins his stint by taking on the Victorian state secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) John Setka.
But the NSW branch of the Labor muscling up over the Victorian branch which gifted Australia six years of stability under Bill Shorten, is a mere side show.
The real game is the impending dismantling of the decades-long social compact between a succession of Australian governments and the citizenry.
The Liberal/National Government will achieve this aim by easily shutting down debate.
You can guarantee key Liberal spokespeople will repeat ad nauseam their favoured fake news phrase; ‘we do not comment about on-water matters’.
The global phenomena of fake news began with the election of US President Donald Trump seemingly with the assistance of certain players associated with the Russian Federation. But this brand of psychological operations or psyops is commonly deployed by most governments.
Indeed the preamble to the US Army’s official psyops manual entitled, Psychological Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, begins with this quote; “all military action is intertwined with psychological forces and effects”. The author is Carl von Clausewitz, taken from his book On War, published in 1827.
Last week an insidious example of fake news or psyops, titillated the global media to wit the vision of smoking oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
Photo from nypost.com (Getty Images)
And when British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn suggested the matter might be a false flag, Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun newspaper hit back with this fake news gem.
So who do we believe?
In times past we sought the Superman of news, that purveyor of “truth, justice and the American Way,” the US White House. But any person other than viewers of Fox/Sky News who give credence to the White House and its soon-to-retire press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders are the very same citizens at whom fake news is aimed.
So how readily is fake news being deployed in Australia?
ABCTV on 17/06/2019 broadcast a Media Watch report where Paul Barry analysed this gem of Sky super star Peta Credlin interviewing Mr Adani about the future of the Carmichael Mine in Queensland.
This mammoth, but problematic coal mine delivered the Coalition three more years in Government courtesy of a swag of Queensland Federal seats.
Despite the fact Credlin’s interview is clearly biased in favour of Adani’s business model, the insidiousness of the fake news is not so much Credlin’s obvious frippery, but rather the pedigree of its spruiker.
Peta Credlin’s husband Brian Loughnane is, among other things, an adviser to The International Republican Institute.
Much of this Institute’s funding comes from, surprise surprise, the US State Department currently lead my Mike Pompeo who on June 16 told Fox News Iran had indeed bombed those pesky oil tankers.
Meanwhile in Australia a few months back the Sydney Morning Herald dutifully reported on April 9 2019 former Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane pressing Peter Dutton MP to bestow special treatment upon a certain Mr Huang Xiangmo.
But when asked to comment on the matter Peter Dutton MP skilfully deployed a variation of the Liberal Party’s favoured fake news phrase, ‘we do not comment on-water matters’.
As the song says, ‘we’ve only just begun’.
Henry Johnston is a Sydney-based author. His latest book, The Last Voyage of Aratus is on sale here.
Like what we do at The AIMN? You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight. Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
8 comments
Login here Register here-
Phil
-
New England Cocky
-
Phil Pryor
-
Terence Mills
-
whatever
-
Lawrence S. Roberts
-
Stephengb
-
Stephengb
Return to home pageFake news is going to send us to war shortly. It is either impeach Trump or war, they have decided on war.
I see the Brits are on board already and we will soon follow. Tally Ho Blue Leader.
Neo-fascism is being brought to you by the numbers of Liarbrals, Notional$ and unthinking MSM “journalists” with the intention of making Australia the worst third world economy in the OECD for the benefit of overseas resident shareholder of foreign owned multinational corporations.
St. Peter is said to have fished, and said, it is said “I will make you fishers of Men…” to others, who eventually learned that netting money, power, control, influence, decision making, law enforcement, coercion ability, military might and subjugation of “others,” women, slaves, foreigners, strangers and anyone you hate is best, very much the best. So class gave the rights to bosses, royalty, dignitaries, prelates, kings and the best concubine, while the rest of our ancestors were told they were owned and controlled. Your William the Conqueror or Attila types said they owned it all and would cut off heads of anyone who might dispute that. It has gone on, robbing most of us for the benefit of the few. Seduced by this, we see hordes go through a filter of decency, to the land of greed and ambition and pose, especially stars of politics, media, law, advertising, money and assorted levers of oppression. It’s so often FAKE NEWS because the controllers just tell an eternal story of why they are supreme, and truth is a stranger to shared issues, decency, community, life. I resent all this more with ageing, as it means we were robbed, abused, have no recourse to justice, little hope.
Very disturbing that non-journalist Peta Credlin would serve up a piece of puffery on behalf of Adani as news with only passing reference to the fact that the trip to India and associated travel and accommodation costs were paid by Adani.
Credlin gave Goutam Adani a soft, simpering interview with no depth. She even forgot to ask the one question that Australians may have found interesting : how many Australians will be employed in this mine ?
Very poor standards of non-journalism even by the standards of Murdoch’s Sky network.
Apart from the FakeNews there is the growing use of surveillance techniques by the MSM. Tapping the phone of anyone in the Construction Union yields a good harvest of “Gotcha!” headlines.
Also, during the election campaign, there was the continual use of telephoto close-ups of Shorten’s mouth as he was chatting with voters. They appeared to be using Laser microphones to record his voice from a distance, as well.
Don’t worry we may well do ‘Pretend News’ or ‘Guess News’ or even
well thought out speculation.
Albo is just keeping the seat warm for The Messier who will materialize
mysteriously six months before the next election: probably a woman,
possibly pregnant.
The way Albo is going, I can’t see him in the seat for long, Labor os tearing otself apart looking for anything but the truth (fake news, propaganda and lies) to justify its spectacular loss.
Albo, judges and condemns Setka on the allegations of a union rival, he will wear that baddly, or as a hero when the truth eventually surfaces!
PS
Lets call a spade a spade – ‘Fake news’ ‘spin’ propaganda, misinformation, misrepresentations are simply LIES.
The LNP are so good at it that Labor currently has no defence.
When the ABC is finally silenced altogether, we will have graduated to a full blown Corporatacracy.
Labor will disintegrate.
That is when xenophobia, islamaphobia, Alt Right xtian supremacist will have a field day.
Unions will be registered and union leadership jailed on more fake news.
Lefties will become a new target for systematic redicule and physical attacks.
Australia will be Great !